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Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent
I assume by "rational basis" you mean it can be logically deduced from a set of axioms, and I suppose whether or not self-sacrifice=virtue is a valid statement depends on the set of moral axioms you're working with. What set of moral axioms are you working with? (I mean, if your behavior is at all rational (systematic) it must reduce to moral axioms, right?)
We can see if the notion of self-sacrifice conflicts with your axioms, and if it does, we can see if your axioms are consistent with each other, and if they are, we can ask whether they are unquestionably valid or assumptions. And if you don't have any axioms, then this conversation is more or less meaningless.
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Man is an end in himself. Pain and pleasure are experienced personally. He can only be proud in himself because he is, in the end, responsible for his own actions. While he cannot control external forces he certainly can react to them, which therefore makes him partially responsible for his contentment in his position in life. Pleasure, esteem, and contentment with the world are all based on oneself. They all are part of happiness. You cannot be happy and be devoid of pleasure. You cannot be happy without self-esteem. You aren't going to be happy, in the true sense of the word, if you aren't doing all you can do to avoid negative external forces. Happiness is the goal of human existence. It is the emotion of good. If you question that, you are questioning your senses. You have to trust your senses because you can't live as a human being if you don't. You will be stuck in a corner sucking your thumb all your life.
Our own happiness is the goal of morality. Common sense would have us say that making the achievement of our own happiness would lead to our own happiness.
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Is rationality the only thing you have to fall back on? No matter what argument, what sphere of conversation or how badly you're losing you can always throw out that same old gem. How is it that you haven't learned that there is no such thing as rationality, no such thing as logical conclusions or reasoning that isn't completely and irrevocably subjective. It's impossible to separate the two, and that's the great fallacy of objective reasoning. Your rationale is based on naive absolutes that remain untested by even your methods, be they metaphysical or scientific, because of the infallible logic that they are "inherent in nature, therefore they don't have to be tested." You're like a broken record, and my ears are beginning to bleed.
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I am sorry I don't believe in your subjectivity. If you take your view to the extreme you will realize that since there is no objective reason to believe anything, you cannot
criticize anything. You cannot even participate in this discussion. Bye.
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Good Friday is the memorial of Christ's crucifixion, Easter is the celebration of his resurrection. There is nothing sad, or mournful, or "sadomasochistic" (which is pretty laughable in the first place) about Easter, that's why there's such a huge rebirth and reincarnation theme with it. It has nothing to do with drinking Christ's blood (you're referring to transubstantiation, correct?), at least not in the Protestant sense. And in the twenty Easter sermons I have heard not one of them has dipped toes in calling the crucifix a figure of self-sacrifice.
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Christians take joy in the death of Jesus. If Jesus didn't die for them, they wouldn't be able to reunite with God. Even if some churches don't come out and celebrate it, they celebrate the human sacrifice of Jesus more than anything. It was the greatest sacrifice of all according to them. Heck, Jesus was all about human sacrifice to God and your fellow man. Jesus's ethics were completely altruistic. He asks Christians to do the same, to sacrifice their lives.
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the story of christ's death and resurrection evolved from classic tales of shamanic rebirth. it's all purely metaphorical, connoting spiritual renewal, and rising above human nature in an attempt to see the bigger picture. nothing at all sadomasochistic about that...
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I realize that it is a metaphor, but it is metaphor for self-sacrifice.